Source: MEATINGPLACE, 9/9/16

By the end of the year, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) plans to propose subjecting some beef primals and sub-primals to the same pathogen testing as boneless manufactured trim.

Dan Engeljohn, assistant administrator of FSIS's Office of Policy and Program Development, surprised industry representatives with the news at the North American Meat Institute’s pathogen control conference here.

Taken aback by the prospect, food safety executives from Tyson Foods, Cargill and JBS all challenged Engeljohn on the proposal, suggesting FSIS already has enough information about these products because the trim that is carved from them at the plant is tested.

At the heart of the proposal is concern that, increasingly, further processors, retailers and foodservice customers turn these cuts into ground beef rather than preserving them as whole-muscle intact cuts, where presumably pathogens would be killed on the surface when cooked.

“The agency has decided we need to move into a more protective mode with regard to those primal and sub-primal cuts that are particularly made into ground beef products and to simply define them as boneless manufactured trimming,” said Engeljohn. “In essence, this would expand that policy to include items from the chuck, round and sirloin that are assumed to be cuts that could be used in ground beef and as a consequence would be eligible for verification testing in our boneless beef manufactured trimming verification program. We also look for salmonella in that program.”

USDA is under pressure to figure out why, even as less than 1 percent of beef carcasses test positive for salmonella, there are still people getting sick from salmonella carried by beef products.

In addition, Engeljohn said FSIS intends to move forward “soon” with expanding its non-O157 Shiga toxin verification testing program to head meat, cheek meat and weasand meat. Industry and agency data indicate there is a salmonella risk associated with these products that is not being adequately addressed by the current policy. 

“We are concerned about salmonella in these products. We are not sure why we have the number of illnesses we have associated with salmonella in these products and we think one way to get at that is through a performance standard,” he said. 
Engeljohn said chuck, sirloin and round primal and sub-primals would be tested in the same way trim is tested unless slaughter facilities can provide an adequate level of support to identify them as products that will only be further cut into whole muscle intact products.

He said the policy would also apply to imported primal and sub-primal cuts at the point of entry, “unless there is ample evidence to support they are for intact use only.”

Meatingplace asked Engeljohn after his presentation to provide more explanation about the proposals it plans to publish in the Federal Register by the end of the year for comment.  

Meatingplace: What would constitute proving that a primal or sub-primal product would remain intact?

ENGELJOHN: When we publish our Federal Register notice it will identify some of the things we have found to be effective in the past. We have some processors who are close trimming those sub-primals so that when they go to a further processor, they will be cut into steaks and roasts or they are actually cutting them into steaks and roasts so they are retail consumer-ready. They are cut in a way such that they will not produce bench trim.
Another example is there are institutional hotel/restaurant facilities that are buying these sub-primals and just cooking them as roasts or steaks but they are not producing ground beef. They have those kinds of records they are sharing with the supplier they are purchasing from. So you have these supplier/purchaser agreements.
Meatingplace: So if the supplier can prove they are selling to a buyer who does not grind and is never going to grind they would not be subject to the proposed testing rules?

ENGELJOHN: That would be one piece of evidence. We are finding that we must constantly look at where we can reduce risk and we do have a fair number of ground beef positive results that reflect components that are primals that were not intended for grind.

Meatingplace: Is the push to make progress against salmonella driving this policy change?

ENGELJOHN: Salmonella is a food safety hazard that we think is reasonably likely to occur in these products. Most operations don’t consider salmonella to be the hazard. They consider STECs to be the hazard because they are the adulterants. We need to focus the industry on more hazards to consider.

Meatingplace: It seems you announcing this policy proposal caught the processors in this room off guard. Have there not been discussions with the industry about this?

ENGELJOHN: I think I have in forums such as this indicated we are considering looking in this direction, but I chose to make it clearer today that we are getting closer to moving this forward. From my perspective, you have those operations that have their entire food safety system addressing the hazards including salmonella and Shiga-toxin E. colis. They are doing that through their high event programs, they are treating their primals and sub-primals with antimicrobials. But that isn’t common among the industry. It is limited perhaps to just a few. So we just feel it is time to move the food safety issue forward for beef and to address it in this way.

Meatingplace: So it sounds like there is concern that interventions across the industry for intact products are not as robust as you feel they should be?

ENGELJOHN: We still have no reason to believe E. coli interventions will not work on salmonella. But we have also identified that the lymphatic system can contain pathogens, particularly salmonella, that are not addressed through the interventions used by the slaughter and processing firms because they are internal and carcass interventions are external.  In order to address that, we need to find another way to get at that. So we will now focus on a new category of products, primals and sub-primals, making sure that we are getting the industry to focus on that and at some point we will move forward with a lymph node report as well.

Meatingplace: When are you looking to publish the proposal on expanding testing?

ENGELJOHN: By the end of the calendar year we will issue a Federal Register notice that says this is the way we are intending to go and invite comment on it. We heard today that industry has concerns about it and we knew they would. They are focused on Shiga-toxin E. coli and we don’t think they are as focused on salmonella as they need to be.

I would just go back to the issue that less than 1 percent of ground beef is contaminated with salmonella, yet we still have a substantial number of illnesses associated with ground beef and salmonella. So, just because it is at or below 1 percent does not make it right. It clearly needs to be addressed in a different, better way.

For more stories, go to www.meatingplace.com.